LANDMARKS AND PERSONALITIES

Italian. Evidently she disagreed with the turn-of-the-century architect's concept of Italian villas; her first move was to rip the place apart, replacing the marble balustrades with wrought iron  and the leather wallpaper with plain stucco, while all the gold furnishings, piano included, were shipped to an auction room in New York to be knocked down to the highest bidder.

   Mr. Frank Sears's mother, Mrs. Francis Sears, owned the pro-perty where the Post Road joins the bypass. She was reputedly  the only person in Weston who ever got the better of Mr. Robert Winsor. There was an article in the town warrant to widen    Central Avenue, with special emphasis on eliminating a sharp corner near its junction with Wellesley Street. The sponsor of      the article announced that Mr. Winsor had shown great generosity in offering the town a gift of one thousand dollars towards the project — providing, however, that the land taken be across the street from his own. This meant Mrs. Sears's property. She was soon on her feet and announced that she would give the town     two thousand dollars if they would take the land from Mr. Winsor. The article passed over.
   One final story about the Frank Searses: my family was hav-    ing a dinner party at which they were among the guests. It was       a warm spring evening and the dining room windows were open. My cousin, Chandler Robbins, was visiting us and we thought it might be interesting to disguise him as a prowler and have him   peer through one of the open windows at the grownups. So we blackened his face with grease and charcoal, put him into an old dressing gown of my mother's — maroon with a gray fur collar —concocted a wig out of a dry mop and perched a shapeless old

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